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Tretiak Trophy
The Tretiak Trophy is awarded annually to the Victory Hockey League's top goaltender as voted by the league's eight General Managers. The award is named after legendary Soviet netminder Vladislav Tretiak, who is considered to be one of the ice hockey's best goaltenders of all-time. Since its inception alongside most of today's awards in Season 1, the Tretiak Trophy has never been altered. Over 20 seasons since the award's inception, 13 different goaltenders have won it, as there has been a number of repeat winners. The Tretiak Trophy is regularly one of the trophies most discussed prior to the VHL's annual awards ceremony, as there are often debates between 2-3 frontrunners, or cases being made for or against the favourite to win. History * Six goaltenders have won the Tretiak Trophy more than once: Matthew Pogge, Maxim Desny, Adrian McCreath, Alex Gegeny, and Zach Voss have won it twice - Benoit Devereux set a record by winning it three times, including one in his rookie season, while becoming one of two goaltenders being crowned the league's top rookie. * McCreath, Gegeny, and Voss also won both of their trophies in back-to-back years, McCreath and Voss winning them with different teams, Seattle and Calgary, and Madrid and Calgary, respectively. Devereux won his 2nd and 3rd trophies in back-to-back years, but won all three with HC Davos Dynamo. * Only once has the Tretiak Trophy been awarded to a non-playoff goalie, coincidentally, the only time it has been awarded to a goalie with no shutouts, a losing record, less than 30 wins, and a goals-against-average below 3.00. This odd occurrence took place in Season 2, when Maxim Desny won the award for having one of the league's top save percentage and managing to win 27 games behind an awful Helsinki Titans roster. * Matthew Pogge (S1, Vasteras), Alex Gegeny (S9, Toronto), Benoit Devereux (S13, Davos), Jonas Markstrom (S16, Riga), and Zach Voss (S19, Calgary) are the only goaltenders to win the Continental Cup in the same season as a Tretiak Trophy. Maxim Desny (S5, Helsinki), McCreath (S7, Calgary), Steve LaFramboise (S11, Seattle), Marek Van Urho (S12, Riga), Voss (S18, Madrid), and Aidan Shaw (S20, Toronto) also made the finals in their Tretiak-winning seasons. *The most individual accolades a goaltender has acquired in one season is two - the Tretiak and the Howe Trophy as the VHL's playoff MVP. Pogge in S1 and Voss in S19 are the only such goaltenders. The exception, Jonas Markstrom, was awarded the Tretiak and the Brett Slobodzian Trophy as the players' MVP in S16, and was on the ballot for the “official” league MVP - the Scotty Campbell Trophy. *There is no record of runner-ups for any VHL award prior to Season 11, a season of a massive revamp of the VHL awards ceremony. Past Winners Tretiak Trophy --> Hall of Fame It is reportedly difficult for a goaltender to win at least two Tretiak Trophies, as a goalie's prime in the VHL tends to be very short, and prolonged success is an instant sign of a great netminder. It should not be surprising that up to the recently retired Zach Voss (S14-S19, 1st HOF eligibility: S20), all goaltenders with at least two Tretiak Trophies have been inducted into the Hall of Fame from Matthew Pogge to Alex Gegeny to arguably the league's best goalie ever - Benoit Devereux. However, out of the goaltenders with just one Tretiak Trophy, none of them have been inducted into the Hall. Criticism The Tretiak Trophy has been known to be given to winning goaltenders rather than taking into account all goaltending factors, such as how valuable a goaltender is to their team, even if the team doesn't win very often. It seems the VHL has only voted for a goalie on a non-championship calibre team twice, the aforementioned Maxim Desny win in Season 2, and then rookie Benoit Devereux in Season 10. Often times, the goaltender on the winning team is in fact the league's best, however, there have been instances where other good goalies have been neglected. An argument about this is very current as it is taking place this season between the powerhouse Toronto Legion's Aidan Shaw and the underdog HC Davos Dynamo's Daisuke Kanou, arguably the two best goalies the league has ever seen. However, in Season 21, Kanou was stuck on a medicore Dynamo squad while Shaw remained on a great Legion team that fell in 7 games to Davos in S20. Shaw's stats have therefore been slightly better than Kanou's, but some argue that the difference can be made up by Kanou getting the Dynamo into the playoffs and cup finals. Category:Awards